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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 6 page essay that discusses tenets of transcendentalism that are applicable to modern society in the twenty-first century. The writer discusses how transcendental philosophy is defined and then relates the works of Emerson and Thoreau to contemporary society. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
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6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_kh21tran.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
are bombarded with messages that subtly, and not so subtly, define identity in terms of possessions, appearances and a plethora of characteristics that our not so distant ancestors would have
classified as superficial or decadent. Examination of the work of transcendental writers, such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, demonstrates that the precepts of their transcendental philosophy are
greatly needed in the twenty-first century because they signify life defined and lived on more meaningful terms than crass materialism. Before preceding, it is probably fruitful to define what
is meant by transcendentalism. Historian Lawrence Buell states that transcendentalism originated as an expression of discontent within American Unitarianism, which was, itself, a liberal movement within Congregationalism (4). They objected
to the Unitarian premise that God and his law could only be comprehended through rational contemplation on the natural world and the study of revelation of scripture, rather then intuitively.
Inspirited by post-Kantian philosophy and the world of Coleridge, protestors against this view began by the 1830s to argue that in addition to humanitys capacity for empirical reasoning, people also
have the ability to discern spiritual truth on an intuitive level (Buell 4-5). It is this perception of "Reason" that Buell argues is at the heart of what has come
to be called "transcendentalism" (5). The individuals who wrote about this faculty referred to it by different names -- e.g., "spirit," "mind," or "soul" - but they were basically
referring to the same quality (Buell 5). As this suggests, intrinsic to this perspective is a profound respect for individuality. Emerson equated individualism with self-reliance, as evidence in his famous
essay by that name. Emersons belief in individualism was so stringent that he advises his reader in his essay "Self-Reliance" not to accept tradition and/or the leadership of institutions,
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